Friday, December 18, 2020

Working Because You are Saved or Working to become Saved?

Many people who are Christians say they believe we are saved by grace without works but live as though they are still working their way to heaven, proud of how much they do for the Lord. If we are still doing works to impress people and gain accolades from them, then we are still walking fleshly. Those who are led by the Holy Spirit do not need praise from men for what they do.
John 12:42-43 "42 Nevertheless, many of the leaders believed in Him; but because of the Pharisees, they did not confess Him, for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue. 43 For they loved praise from men more than praise from God."
Those who labor until the end are those who are born again and will never be lost. Those who do not make it to the end are those who were pretenders, they never knew the Lord and the Lord never saved them. They attempted to come to Christ in their own effort through their own works. Those who are born again were changed into a new creation by Christ, they can never change themselves back to the old because it was a work of God. When we have trusted in Christ and what He did for us He then comes to live in us and changes us, its all His work in us. We do good works because He moves in us to do them. We do not do good works to earn heaven.
Ephesians 2:8-9
"8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast."
1 Corinthians 6:11
"11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God."
2 Corinthians 5:17
"17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, this person is a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come."
Ephesians 2:8-21 " 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,
9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
11 Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands—
12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility
15 by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace,
16 and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.
17 And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near.
18 For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.
19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens,[d] but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God,
20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone,
21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.
22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit."

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